Advertising — страница 3

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additional problem. They had elected to avoid price competition whenever possible and to compete instead on the basis of quality and service. This policy made it potentially difficult to attract new customers and create store traffic, because grocery customers tend to be very price-oriented. The Tom Thumb Chain had been doing " maintenance advertising " in routine food-day newspaper sections for about four years. When they hired a new Charles Cullum explained their situation and their objectives. They asked the agency to develop a campaign that would show that Tom Thumb was, in fact, very competitive in giving top value even though the prices might be slightly higher. Barbara Harwell and Chuck Beau, the agency's creative directors, responded by developing a local

institutional compaign that made grocery advertising history. They suggested opening the campaign with a television promotion for Thanksgiving turkeys. They convinced the Cullums and Tom Hailstone, the Chain's president, that to present a truly quality image they would have to create an absolutely outstanding commercial in terms of production quality. Furthermore, to communicate that Tom Thumb's policies truly warranted higher prices, they pervaded the clients to make a bold, risky statement that would impress the viewing public. Hairston and the Cullums agreed two weeks before Thanksgiving, the campaign began. The Commercial Opened with a tight close-up of a live turkey. As the off-camera announcer spoke, the camera pulled slowly back, and the turkey rested to the copy with an

occasional" gobble ". The announcer said: At Tom Thumb we stand behind everything we sell... And that's a promise. It's always been that way. Even when we started, Mr. Cullum said, "We want our customers to be happy with every thing they buy in this store. If a woman buys a turkey from us and comes back the day after Thanksgiving with a bag of pones and says she didn't like it we'll give her money back or give her another turkey." The moment he said that, the turkey reacted with a big " gobble " and ran off-camera. The commercial closed on the company lag with the announcer saying, "That's the way we do business at Tom Thumb... we stand behind everything we sell, and that's a promise." The company merchandised the campaign by printing the

slogan " We stand behind everything we sell... and that's a promise". On grocery sacks, on red lapel buttons for employees, and on outdoor billboards. The audio portions of the commercials were aired as radio spots. Most important employee-orientation meetings were held to explain the concepts to the company's personal and to make absolutely sure that any customers returning merchandise received a friendly, cordial smile from the employee handling the transaction. The reaction to the campaign was astounding. First, it became the topic of local conversation. Then people began to wonder how many turkeys' people began to talk about the campaign and showed the commercial in their newscasts. Finally, the top disk jockey in Dallas sponsored a contest inviting listeners to

guess how many turkeys would be returned to Tom Thumb. The day after Thanksgiving, the local TV film crews waited at the stores to count and interview people carrying in bags of bones. One customer said she returned a turkey and got her money back with no questions asked. Another said she was given her money immediately but that she then gave the money back. She had just wanted to test them to see whether they were telling the truth. The final score was 30.000 turkeys sold and only 18 returned - a fantastic marketing, advertising, and publicity success. Since then, the store has been reported in numerous grocery and advertising trade journals, and Tom Thumb Page successfully continued the " we stand behind everything we sell " advertising campaign theme. This "

talking turkey " example shows that creativity in developing an ad campaign is just as important at the local level as it is on the national level, Local advertisers often fail to realize that their print and broadcast messages the budgetary constraints of local businesses, creativity becomes even more important in grabbing the consumer's attention. The final section of this chapter addresses elements that go into creating local ads, and the kinds of creative assistance available to local advertisers. 1.5 SEEKING CREATIVE ASSISTANCE Local businesses have a number of sources they can turn to for creative help, including advertising agencies, the local media, free-lancers and consultants, creative boutiques, syndicated art services, and wholesalers, manufacturers, and trade